The Incredible Robinsons
by RockSunner
Summary: Violet and Wilbur will find out that time-travel can change the destinies of superheros, too. Written in collaboration with CMR Rosa. Ships Violet and Wilbur.
1. Prelude: Inspiration Failures

This is a cross-over between "The Incredibles" and "Meet the Robinsons." Violet and Wilbur will find out that time-travel can change the destinies of superheros, too. Written in collaboration with CMR Rosa. We do not claim ownership of any of the characters – they belong to Pixar and Disney.

**Prelude: Inspiration Failures**

Lewis said, "My mother is the only person who ever wanted me. I have to find her, Mildred. And when I do she'll take me back, and we'll be a family again!"

He was up on the roof of the orphanage, where he always went after he failed an adoption interview. He had made a new mark on his tally box: one hundred and twenty-four failed interviews. The Harringtons had been the worst disaster yet. He had nearly killed Mr. Harrington by accidentally spraying him with peanut butter from his jammed PB+J machine, not knowing Mr. Harrington had a peanut allergy.

There wasn't a chance in a million he would get adopted before he turned thirteen, and after he became a teenager his chances were worse than that. Finding his birth mother was his only hope now.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, Lewis. You can't do that. Nobody knows anything about her. Nobody even saw her," said Mildred.

"You're wrong. I saw her, once. It's in here," Lewis said, tapping his head. "I just have to remember."

He looked across the street at a large movie poster for "The Weird West." No inspiration there. He shut his eyes tight and tried to remember as hard as he could. Nothing happened; no images came to his mind at all.

"It's hopeless," he said with a sigh. "I might as well give up. I have no future."

"Don't ever say that," said Mildred. "Someone like you has every hope for a bright future. Just keep moving forward."

Lewis moped through a week of school before there was any ray of hope. Mr. Willerstein, his science teacher, gave him a flyer.

"Inventco Presents: Science Fair. First prize – Apprenticeship with Inventco for one year."

One more chance. If he couldn't have a family, he could still make a future for himself. There wasn't much time left. He would have to do something simple. Maybe he could rework his PB+J machine. It was an impressive invention, as long as it didn't jam and explode again.

His roommate Goob would help. Goob loved peanut butter, and he would be delighted to work on something simple that didn't cut into his sleep and interfere with his baseball games.

* * *

A few years later, another boy stood on the roof of the same orphanage. He saw Mr. Incredible race down the block in his Incredicar.

Buddy Pine longed to follow, but there was no way he could catch up. He had been dreaming of becoming Incrediboy, the adopted ward of Mr. Incredible, his sidekick to help him in all his adventures. He had made one wall of his room into a shrine to Mr. Incredible, with a huge poster and all the newspaper clippings he could find.

But to be Incrediboy he had to have something to make himself a real asset. The rocket skates he had tried to make so that he could keep up with his hero were a failure. Buddy was brilliant with machinery, but he just hadn't found the right inspiration.

He heard on the news that night that Mr. Incredible had saved a cat that was stuck in a tree, stopped escaping bank robbers with the same tree, caught a tour bus robber (with the help of Elastigirl), stopped a suicide jumper without causing him any injuries, and caught Bomb Voyage in the act of robbing a bank. All in a day's work for the superhero. After that, Mr. Incredible went off duty for the night. No doubt he had a nice evening lined up in his secret identity, too.

Buddy threw away his Incrediboy costume. It just wasn't going to work. He would have to make his own future without Mr. Incredible.

As Mildred always said, "Keep moving forward."


	2. Violet Meets Wilbur

_Authors' Notes_

This chapter draws much of its inspiration from ___Meet The Incredibles: Two Worlds Collide_ by_ iKatnissStarkWestoftheFlock, _used by permission of the author.

Like that story, this story uses a combined time-line that allows Violet and Wilbur to be contemporaries.

Other than a voice-over in a movie trailer, there's no real internal evidence that Wilbur lives in 2037. In fact, there's substantial evidence that he lives earlier. The tech level for young Lewis seems wrong for 2007. A movie advertised as being in "Dazzling Color"? Clunky CRT desktop computers instead of flat-screens?

The city, Municiberg, has not been completely replaced by a city of the future. Michael Yagoobian was using the abandoned orphanage as his lair. "Todayland" may be exactly what it looks like - a theme park showcasing inventions of Robinson Industries, which may not have been widely adopted yet. The bubble transport is a theme park ride, not a common replacement for cars.

The tech level of Violet's day can be nudged forward a little. There's certainly high-tech around for some supervillains. Other than a couple of superhero death dates, which we will conveniently ignore, there's not much to date "The Incredibles" either.

******Violet Meets Wilbur**

Violet sat alone in the lunchroom of her new elementary school. Her family had just enrolled her there, in this new charter Montessori school, in the middle of the semester.

They thought she could do well here because she was bright and could learn at her own pace. It was terrible, because all the other kids had already made friends and ten-year-olds weren't nice to the new girl.

She hated being called names. Someone started calling her 'Shrinking Violet' because of how she tried to hide herself and not be noticed, and the name had stuck. She was the shy kid, the loner, the geek. She wanted to do well in school, not try to make the teachers miserable. What was wrong with that?

The other girls played house and the boys played superheroes. Violet smiled. Someday she would go into action as a superhero herself.

Three years ago, when she was seven, she shocked herself by making her face disappear while she was looking in the mirror. She thought she had died and become a ghost. She cried and her mother came running to comfort her. Soon they found that she could not only turn invisible but also project purple force fields. Her six-year old brother, Dash, had super-speed; he could run so fast you could barely see him.

Her parents encouraged her and Dash to practice their powers in secret. But they weren't allowed to show powers in public, unmasked. Superheroes have to maintain a secret identity. It was the only way to have a normal life and not be targeted by old enemies of her father, Mr. Incredible, or her mother, Elastigirl. Even though their real last name was Parr, they had papers in the name of Armstrong. The government helped them keep their secret in return for occasional secret missions.

So Violet Armstrong had to hide everything that made her special, everything that might have won her some friends. She put a homework paper on the table beside her school lunch so she would have something to do while she ate. Learning at her own pace let her work ahead, and today she was trying to learn division.

She was struggling to divide 77 by 6 when she felt a tap on her shoulder. She gave a jump of surprise, bumping into the boy behind her, who nearly dropped his tray, but just managed to keep hold of it.

"Are you usually this jumpy?" the boy asked.

His hair was black, just like hers. It had a cowlick standing nearly straight up from his head. He wore a black shirt with a lightning bolt in a blue circle on the front, blue jeans, and a light brown jacket.

"No, but I don't usually have people sneak up behind me like that," said Violet.

The boy looked like he was about to make an angry retort, but his expression softened. "Sorry about that. I just wanted to ask if I could sit at this table with you. I'm new to the school, too."

Violet brushed back her long hair that usually hid the right side of her face. "Fine with me," she said, trying to keep cool and aloof.

"I'm Wilbur," said the boy. "Wilbur Robinson."

"I'm Violet Armstrong. Are you any relation to Cornelius Robinson, the inventor?"

"He's my dad," said Wilbur. "How about that? It's not everyday you meet a guy related to someone famous."

"If you only knew how famous my Dad is," thought Violet, but she just smiled and said nothing.

Wilbur sat down across the table from her.

As he did, a big blond-haired kid bumped into him as he walked past. Violet recognized him as Buster Harris, a real jerk. Even a Montessori school had bullies, and he was the worst.

"Well, look who's sitting together. Shrinking Violet and Pointy Head. A geek and a freak," Buster sneered. "You better start handing over your lunch money to me, starting tomorrow."

"I don't think you'd better mess with us," said Wilbur. He pulled a doughnut-sized ring from his pocket and tossed it at the bully's feet. It expanded to the size of a hula hoop.

"What's that?" asked Buster.

"It's an experimental portable bubble-transport, like the ride at TodayLand," said Wilbur. "When I give the signal it will blow a bubble around you, lift you to the ceiling, and then pop, dropping you to the floor."

"I don't believe it, geek," said Buster.

Wilbur reached into his pocket and pressed the button of a remote control. The machine began to hum and a purple glowing bubble started to form in the loop.

Buster backed away from the glowing device. "I give," he said. He turned and ran.

"That did better than I expected," said Wilbur to Violet. "I was only expecting a little hum to bluff him with."

Violet smiled. "You did great, Wilbur."

She wasn't going to tell him that she had supplied a bit of glowing force-field to add to the effect.

"We ought to join forces," said Wilbur. "Are you with me?"

"Yeah," said Violet. "If what you mean is, let's be friends."

Wilbur smiled and said, "Sure!"

That's how they first met.

They seemed like total opposites, but they grew to be best friends. Violet was shy, sweet, withdrawn, and very smart. Wilbur was outspoken, wild, and didn't care about school in spite of his scientific father. But they complemented each other and learned from each other. Violet learned to have more confidence and to stand up for herself. Wilbur learned when to tone it down and keep himself out of trouble. Nobody could bring out the scholar in Wilbur but Violet, and nobody could bring out the wild side of Violet like Wilbur.

In a few years the sparks were going to fly.


	3. Dinner With the Robinsons

**Dinner with the Robinsons**

"How do you think it will go at dinner tonight?" Violet asked Wilbur on her cell phone. "Your family won't be too... strange, will they?"

"They'll be themselves, and everything will be fine," said Wilbur.

"It was my fault," Violet said. "It slipped out that we're talking about dating, so my mom wanted to meet your family. She's always treating me like a little kid. I'm thirteen, and I should be able to see who I like without her checking everybody out. Where's her trust?"

"So you and your folks come to dinner tonight. What's the worst that could happen?" asked Wilbur.

"Don't say that. You'll jinx it," said Violet.

Soon Helen and Bob gathered the family together. Violet's younger brother, baby Jack-Jack, was in Helen's arms.

"I want all of you to be on your best behavior," said Helen. "No pranks, Dash, nothing at high speed. We have secret identities to maintain. Promise, all of you, not to use any powers."

"No problem here," said Dash.

"We'll be careful, Mom," said Violet. "What about Jack-Jack?"

"He hasn't manifested any powers yet, and hopefully that will continue tonight," said Helen.

"It doesn't feel right somehow, keeping secrets from Wilbur... and his family," said Violet. "You're expecting to find out all about them, but keep our big secret to ourselves."

"We have to, for our own protection," said Bob. "Your mother and I have made a lot of enemies over the years that are looking for revenge."

"It's just sad that I have to hide such a big part of myself from Wilbur," said Violet.

"I bet you'd like to show all sorts of parts of yourself to Wilbur," Dash said.

"You rude little brat! Mom, make him stop teasing me!" said Violet. She grabbed at Dash, but he sped out of the way and raced around her until she got a force-field ball under his feet and made him trip.

"Enough," said their father, picking up each by the collar with one hand.

"Dash, that was very rude," said Helen. "Violet, it was still no excuse to attack him. Leave each other alone or there will be consequences."

They all piled into the car and drove to the Robinson's home, set among green fields and an elaborate topiary garden.

"This is a fancy place," said Helen. "I hope I'm dressed all right for them, not too informal."

"Don't worry about that. The Robinsons aren't formal at all," said Violet.

Her words were proved an understatement when the family got to the front door. Two heads popped up from the planters on each side of the door.

"Ring my doorbell," said the one on the right.

"No, ring mine," said the one on the left.

"Let's ring both," suggested Helen. She and Bob each pressed a doorbell at the same time.

"No fair," said the one on the right. "That keeps the score tied."

"No it doesn't, Spike," said the one on the left. "Mine was pressed an instant sooner, so I win."

"If either was sooner, it was mine, Dmitri," said Spike. "So I win."

The door was opened by an enormous purple octopus with one yellow eye.

Bob got into a fighting stance, "A monster! Stay back; I'll deal with this."

"That's just our butler, Lefty," said Spike.

"I knew that. I was just kidding," said Bob with a weak grin. "Imagine, me trying to fight a monster."

"Careful, honey," said Helen softly. "They're eccentric rich folks. Expect the unexpected, and don't rush into anything."

Soon they had met everyone: Bud, Wilbur's grandfather, with gray hair sticking out on both sides, and a face drawn on back of head; His wife Lucille, who liked to bake cookies using a dance-driven oven; Franny Robinson, the singing frog-training wife of Cornelius Robinson (he had to be out of town for unexpected business); her brother Gaston, who liked to shoot himself from cannons; her brother Art, who delivered pizza in a costume similar to the ones the Incredibles wore; Bud's brother Joe, a coach potato on a flying couch; Joe's wife Billie, who raced life-sized toy trains; Bud's brother Fritz, who was henpecked by his wooden puppet wife, Petunia; Fritz's daughter Talullah, who wore a skyscraper hat with a monkey named Kong living in it; Fritz's son Laszlo, a painter who created art using a paint gun while flying around with a propeller on his head; and a bendy-armed robot belonging to Wilbur, named Carl.

"You all seem to live your dreams," said Helen. "I admire that."

"We do," Franny said. "How about you? Do you make time for self-expression?"

"I think so," said Helen with a smile. "Raising a family is a dream in itself for me."

"Speaking of dreams, I've always wanted to be shot out of a cannon," said Bob. "May I try that, Gaston?"

"Better not, Bob," said Helen. "What if you did something that would hurt, and we had to rush you to the hospital?"

"That wouldn't happen," said Bob.

"Of course not. My cannons are perfectly safe... almost," said Gaston.

"No, Bob," said Helen firmly. "I-dentity think it's a good idea." (She said this quickly so "identity" sounded like "I don't really".)

Carl served dinner, using a lot of little Carls that popped out of his chest and delivered bowls of beef curry to all.

As the family ate, a cell-phone call came in for Franny. "Experiment DOR-15 has escaped? Is it dangerous?... I see. I doubt it's anything to worry about. It's just a hat."

"A hat escaped?" Violet asked.

"Doris is a helping hat my husband invented, Violet. It has a built-in brain scanner so it can anticipate the needs of its wearer. Somehow it got a mind of its own and ran amok. But it's just a hat. I doubt it can do much harm."

"Maybe a superhero will find and destroy it," Bob said.

"If we're lucky," said Franny.

Dinner was over, and Wilbur asked, "Would it be all right if Violet and I took a walk around the garden in the moonlight?"

"All right," said Franny, "If you go through the garage on your way out and take out the trash."

"Way to kill the mood, Mom," said Wilbur.

"It's your chore, so no back-talk," said Franny. "And make sure to lock the garage door after you, or the security system won't engage."

As they walked through the garage, Violet noticed two flying-saucer-like machines. "What are those?"

"Time machines. They're inventions of my dad's. After tons of failures, those are his first two successes."

"Wow, working time machines. Your dad's incredible, Wilbur," said Violet.

"You're family's incredible, too," said Wilbur.

"You think so? Why?" asked Violet.

"Because they have you," said Wilbur.

They took out the trash, but they were so caught up with each other that neither remembered to lock the garage door. As they walked in the garden, a small bowler hat slipped through the bushes toward them.

They held hands and breathed in the cool evening air. The garden was lovely, the mood was perfect, and their faces moved closer together...

"Violet and Wilbur sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G," said Dash, appearing suddenly behind them.

"How did you get here? I didn't see you following us," said Wilbur.

"He's fast, and sneaky," said Violet. "Go away, you little spy."

There was a rustling noise from the bushes.

"What was that?" Wilbur asked.

"Let's check it out," said Dash.

"Hold on," said Violet. "No need to rush into danger."

She texted her father's phone, "some1 near garage."

There was a sequence of beeping sounds, as if the thing in the bushes was trying to talk to them.

Dash caught glimpse of it. "It's Doris, the rogue helping hat! We've got to stop it."

Doris flew out of the bushes, apparently giving up on trying to communicate with them and treating them as a threat instead. She rushed toward them, extending spinning claws from under her brim.

Violet and Dash were ready to blow their cover if they had to, but it wasn't necessary. Mr. Incredible leaped to the rescue, landing on the hat and smashing it flat.

"You kids are lucky I happened to be on patrol. I spotted you in trouble," said Mr. Incredible.

"Thank you, Mr. Incredible," said Violet.

Violet was relieved: she hadn't had to expose her secret identity.

Things were going to be all right. This time at least.


	4. Captain Time Travel

**Captain Time Travel**

Violet and Wilbur went to "Dining for Two," their favorite restaurant for romantic dates. They were in the same college but in different dorms, so they didn't get to be with each other as often as they wanted. Wilbur was ready for that to change.

"You know, Violet, we've been seeing each other for quite a while now..." said Wilbur.

"Six and a half years," said Violet.

"I have something to ask you," said Wilbur.

He produced a small square box.

"Oh, Wilbur..."

"Press the button on top," Wilbur said.

She did, and a small robotic arm popped out, holding a diamond ring. Violet gave a little yelp.

"Trust you to turn it into an electronic practical joke," Violet said.

"But I mean it. Will you marry me?" Wilbur asked.

"I want to say yes, and I will after I tell you something important. If you still want to," said Violet.

"What could you say that would change how I feel about you?" asked Wilbur.

She lowered her voice, "I'm a superhero."

"You're teasing me..." Wilbur said.

She held out a hand on the table and made her fingers disappear before his eyes.

"I-Invisigirl?" Wilbur asked.

"Invisiwoman now," said Violet. "I'm a woman, you can testify to that."

"You most certainly are," said Wilbur. "But I've known you all this time, and you never said anything?"

"Secret identity issues," said Violet. "But since we're going to be married you have to know."

"I guess this explains all the times you were late for dates, or missed them, and weren't where you said you would be," said Wilbur.

"I was fighting crime. It's my duty – you know, with great power comes great responsibility," said Violet.

"What about your responsibility to be honest with the person you care about? You lied to me," said Wilbur.

"You don't understand; I was afraid you wouldn't. But I'm being honest now," said Violet.

"It's a little late, don't you think? Here I am proposing to you, and it turns out I hardly know you at all. I know a false persona, while the real you is out bouncing bullets off your force shields. You could be killed. Just one time bringing up a force field too slowly, and..."

"I'm good at this, Wilbur. I practice," said Violet.

"You could have died out there. Could still die any night on patrol," said Wilbur.

"It sounds like I'm not what you signed up for. Consider the engagement off, then," said Violet. "I have to go."

"Wait, that's not what I meant. I still love you. I just have to process this," said Wilbur.

"You'll never understand unless you become a superhero yourself," said Violet. "I don't see that happening anytime soon."

She slipped away from the table, and by the time Wilbur could pay and leave she was gone.

"I'll become a hero, if that's what it takes," said Wilbur to himself..

* * *

The next day, Wilbur visited his father in his workshop.

"Dad, do you still have that personal portable time-machine you developed after the car ones? And is it safe to use?" Wilbur asked.

"It depends on how you use it, son," said Cornelius. "There's a reason I never released any of my time-travel inventions to the public. Time travel is extremely dangerous."

"How is it dangerous?" Wilbur asked.

Cornelius pulled up a whiteboard and sketched a river with a marker. "Time is like a river. It flows along its channel, and normally stays there. Going back in time and making a change is like throwing a rock upstream. Most of the time nothing much will happen, but changes can build up that divert the course of the river altogether."

"And that's not good?" Wilbur asked.

"It can change it enough so that you will never exist. It's the old grandfather paradox; that can actually happen. Going back in time and killing your own grandfather before he has any children is a fancy way to commit suicide. You would be wiped out of existence."

"But then I couldn't go back and kill him, so he would be alive again," said Wilbur.

"That's what they used to say, but my experiments show otherwise. There's a conservation of flow around that sort of external change. The change persists even though the cause is removed. So your grandfather would remain dead, and you wouldn't exist, and that would remain the case unless another time traveler went back and prevented it."

"Are there any other dangers?" Will asked.

"There are a couple of others, but I built in safety precautions for them. One is upsetting history in a way that makes things worse, but without destroying yourself. When you make a change in the past, the changes are carried forward by quantum packets – I call them bubbles, because that's what they look like. They move through the time-stream at a finite 'speed' and alter everything to match the new time-line, including people's memories. In my time machines, the memories of the time-travelers are temporarily bubble-proofed. Your mind resists any bubbles that flow through in the next few hours after time-travel. That way you can see if something has gone wrong and correct it."

"And the other danger?" Wilbur asked.

"Taking someone out of the past and moving them by time-machine is a perilous operation. Effectively that person will not exist from then on, until he or she is put back. Bubbles will flow out from that point, unless something stops them. My machines are built with an automatic time dam, stopping the flow of bubbles until the person is restored, or the dam breaks."

"What happens if the dam breaks?" Wilbur asked.

"Very bad things. I don't want to find out," said Cornelius. "At the very least the changes resulting from that person disappearing from history will bubble through. Worst case might be a time flood which wrecks everything in its path."

"So, may I borrow the time machine?" Wilbur asked.

"After all that, you still want to risk it?" Cornelius asked.

"It's important to me. It's something I want to do for Violet," said Wilbur.

"Violet has been a good influence on you, Wilbur," said Cornelius. "If she's involved I'll trust that you will use the invention safely."

* * *

Wilbur prepared his costume carefully. He had designed a black vest with a blue circle on the front, with a yellow lightning bolt crossing the circle. He wore it over a blue long-sleeved shirt, and blue spandex pants. On his hands were red gloves. He also wore a yellow cape with epaulettes on his shoulders. Capes were out of fashion these days for some reason, but they were all the rage for the period in which he intended to work. Besides, the cape allowed him to conceal the personal portable time-machine on his back, as well as anti-gravity flying equipment.

No mask was required, because nobody back then would know his face. But he concealed his black hair with its characteristic spike, using a brown wig. There was no need to invite reprisals on any of his relatives who lived back then and had similar hair.

He studied his stack of print-outs of old newspaper articles for the cases in which he had chosen to intervene. Like the science-fiction story of time-traveling dinosaur hunters who only hunted dinosaur about to die, he would only catch crooks who were about to be caught anyway. He figured he could build up some superhero experience and glory without changing the past too much.

Besides the time-traveler's advantage of hindsight, he had a few more futuristic tricks up his sleeve. There was a capturing bubble-blower, a high-powered flash gun, and his flying equipment. Besides that, he had figured out how to use the time-machine to slow time around him so he could move very quickly.

First was a bank robbery. The robbers were due to walk out into the hands of the police because a teller pushed a silent alarm. He would get there first. He went to the bank and dialed himself back in time using the controls concealed in his left epaulette.

"Captain Time Travel is just in time!" was his catch-phrase as he arrived. He created a lifting bubble around two of the robbers. Where was the third?

Oh, right behind him. He felt a gun pressing into his back.

"Hands up, superhero," said the robber.

As he raised his hands, Captain Time Travel triggered his time-slowing device at maximum, using a control in his right glove. He spun and took the gun away from the man before it could fire. He pointed it up at the ceiling and let the normal flow of time resume. The gun went off into the ceiling; that was close.

He bubbled up the third robber. A minute later the police arrived to take them in.

"You're a new hero, aren't you?" asked one officer. "I haven't seen you around before."

"I'm Captain Time Travel. From the future."

"Good work, Captain, but be careful," said the officer. "I heard a gunshot."

"When I need to be, I can be faster than a speeding bullet," said Captain Time Travel.

He carried out a few more missions, upstaging the local superheros in several cases. After the last case, the press gathered around and asked for an interview, which he granted.

"Captain Time Travel, are you really from the future?" asked a reporter in a turquoise dress.

"Yes, I am," said the Captain.

"What can you tell us about the technology of the future?" asked another reporter, wearing thick glasses.

"I'm not at liberty to talk about that."

"What about a failed invention? That couldn't hurt anything?"

"All right, I'll tell you about the time I was up against a rogue helping hat."

"A helping hat?"

"A robot built into a bowler hat, with a built-in brain scanner to anticipate the needs of its owner. It also had robotic claws so it could run around and grab things."

"That sounds dangerous."

"It was, but I was able to defeat it. No more helping hats were ever produced."

* * *

A screen-writer was listening to the TV news.

"I've got it!" she told her husband. "'The Menace of the Helping Hats' would be a great sci-fi horror movie. Suppose a bunch of them got loose. With their brain scanners they could take over people's minds, and take over the world!"

"Too far-fetched. Nobody would believe that. I think you should lose the hat angle, but the brain scanner idea is good," her husband said.

"Brain Scanners from Outer Space," said the writer. "I know I can sell that concept."

* * *

Up on the roof of the orphanage, Mildred was trying to talk Lewis out of trying to find his birth mother.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, Lewis. You can't do that. Nobody knows anything about her. Nobody even saw her," said Mildred.

"You're wrong. I saw her, once. It's in here," Lewis said, tapping his head. "I just have to remember."

He looked across the street at a large movie poster for "Brain Scanners from Mars."

"That's it!" he said.


	5. Time-Machine Theft

Authors' note: thanks for the encouraging reviews to EvanescentDream93, kaitoukidsama, Guest, and BamBrixBam.

**Time-Machine Theft**

Violet's family met the Robinsons for dinner. When dinner was over, Wilbur asked, "Would it be all right if Violet and I took a walk around the garden in the moonlight?"

"All right," said Franny, "If you go through the garage on your way out and take out the trash."

"Way to kill the mood, Mom," said Wilbur.

"It's your chore, so no back-talk," said Franny. "And make sure to lock the garage door after you, or the security system won't engage."

As they walked through the garage, Violet and Wilbur talked about the two time-machines parked there, and how awesome each other's families were.

They took out the trash, but they were so caught up with each other that neither remembered to lock the garage door. As they walked in the garden, a villainous man wearing a bowler hat slipped into the garage.

They held hands and breathed in the cool evening air. The garden was lovely, the mood was perfect, and their faces moved closer together...

"Violet and Wilbur sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G," said Dash, appearing suddenly behind them.

"How did you get here? I didn't see you following us," said Wilbur.

"He's fast, and sneaky," said Violet. "Go away, you little spy."

One of the time machines flew out of the garage. The man in the bowler hat gave an evil laugh as he jetted away and opened a portal to the past.

"I am so dead," said Wilbur. "I was supposed to remember to lock the garage, and now one of the time machines is gone."

"You have the other time machine. Maybe you can go after it and get it back," said Violet.

"Maybe," said Wilbur. "What the thief doesn't know is that there's a module in the first time-machine that shares memory with the other. In fact, all the computers in the house are linked and back each other up. If we're lucky, I can find out where he went."

"May I go with you? Two heads are better than one," said Violet.

"Three heads," said Dash. "I want a cool time travel adventure too, or I'll run and tell Mom."

"You wouldn't," said Violet.

"I would too," said Dash.

"I'd rather do this alone," said Wilbur. "But if the alternative is getting told on... you can both come. We've got to leave right now. This bowler hat guy could wreck things in the past and change the present."

They got into the other time-machine and Wilbur brought up the coordinates. "Thirty years ago. He specifically looked up the address of a science fair held by Inventco... oh no."

"What is it?" asked Violet.

"That's the day my dad won the science fair with a brain scanner, and the day he first met my grandparents, the Robinsons, who adopted him. He could miss the big event that changed his life. It could change my life too... into not existing at all!"

"No!" said Violet.

"The way that super-villain was laughing, that may be exactly what he has in mind," said Dash.

"Super-villain?" asked Wilbur.

"Cape, evil laugh..." said Violet. "He's a villain, anyway. And time-travel is a super power, like that famous superhero of the early days, Captain Time Travel."

"That guy's my favorite hero. I even have his logo on my tee shirt," said Wilbur.

"Enough chatter. Let's go!" said Dash impatiently.

Wilbur revved up the time-machine and they took off after the Bowler Hat Guy. Destination: Municiberg thirty years ago.


	6. Science Fair

**Science Fair**

They landed the time machine in an alley next to the InventCo Science Fair, and Wilbur turned on the cloaking device.

"You guys should leave this to me," said Wilbur. "The situation calls for finesse."

"I'm good at physical finesse," said Dash.

"Not fitness, genius," said Violet. "Okay, Wilbur. We'll stay out unless you need backup."

Wilbur went inside.

Dash asked, "Are we really going to stay out of it? He could use help from our powers if the super villain attacks."

Violet said, "I know, but I don't want to compromise our secret identities yet. I'm going to sneak in invisibly and look for that Bowler Hat Guy. You stay here."

"If you're getting in on the fun, so will I," said Dash. "I can run in without anyone seeing me."

They argued for a few minutes, until they heard a crash.

Wilbur had tried to talk to the young inventor Lewis, his future father. That hadn't gone very well. Then Wilbur thought he saw the Bowler Hat Guy, and charged him, but it turned out to be another science fair contestant with a solar system exhibit. The resulting crash knocked over a box of frogs, and Wilbur was stuck picking them up under the watchful eye of the young girl who owned them, who somehow reminded him of his mother.

Dash ran over quickly, in street clothes, to help Wilbur with the frogs. Violet came in a little later, invisible, having stripped to her costume. She joined the group that was starting to watch Lewis demonstrate his scanner.

"Have you ever forgotten something, and no matter how hard you tried you couldn't remember it?" Lewis said. "Well, what happens to these forgotten memories? I propose they're stored somewhere in your brain. I built a machine that can retrieve them. I call it... the memory scanner."

Violet thought she heard something moving under the cloth covering the exhibit, and she moved closer to investigate. But Lewis pulled off the cover and there was nothing, so she relaxed.

Lewis entered a date on his control panel, which Wilbur noticed was housed in a Captain Time Travel lunchbox. He turned on the machine and it started to warm up.

"It will just take a second to get the turbines going."

The machine started to vibrate, and a spinning propeller came loose. It flew into the air before Violet could catch it in a force-field bubble. It flew into one of the electric lights on the ceiling, setting off sparks that ignited the Mount Vesuvius exhibit.

"She's gonna blow!" Stanley cried out.

Dash went to super-speed and grabbed it, and looked around for a way to get it away from the crowd safely. He saw an exit door directly behind Lewis, and he ran for that.

Violet realized Dash wouldn't have enough control at that speed to avoid injuring Lewis, possibly destroying the future father of Wilbur. She threw up a force field around herself, Lewis and his broken machine. Dash ran into that, slipping and dropping the the volcano, which exploded with hot orange jelly all over the people in front of the machine: Mr. Willerstein, Dr. Lucille Krunklehorn, and the gym coach. A glob from the volcano hit the fire ant farm brought by a girl named Lizzie, and the ant farm fell to the ground and broke open. There were fire ants all over the floor, and some went up on people's legs and bit them, adding to the panic. Then the hot "lava" set off the sprinklers. Everyone had to evacuate the gym.

"I'm sorry," Lewis said. "I had no idea that would happen."

"Not now, Lewis," said Mr. Willerstein.

Lewis went sadly out the exit, leaving his memory scanner behind.

Violet slipped out invisibly and back into her day clothes at the time machine. Dash joined her after picking up many of the spilled fire ants at high speed and getting them back into their ant farm.

Wilbur came running out. "It was a disaster! That machine wasn't supposed to fall apart, much less pull in that volcano and make it explode. The Bowler Hat Guy sabotaged it. We've got to stop my dad from giving up, or he won't get adopted, and then his future will be different and I won't exist."

"We can still fix this. We have to," Violet said.

As he started up the time machine in local hover mode, Wilbur said, "I could have sworn I saw two people in red costumes appear just as the volcano exploded. They looked like Invisigirl and Dasher, but that's impossible."

"You did see them," said Violet. "My brother and I are superheros, and we were trying to help."

"Some help," said Wilbur. "You made things incredibly worse."

"We can still fix this. We have to," Dash said.

"You stay out of it. I'll talk my dad into coming back, fixing his machine, and getting his life back on course."


	7. Convincing Lewis

**Convincing Lewis**

"All this time I've known you, and you never told me you were superheros?" Wilbur asked, still irritated with Violet and Dash.

"It's a secret identity. We try to keep it unless there's an emergency, like this was. I'm sorry, Wilbur. It doesn't change how I feel about you," said Violet.

"It doesn't change how I feel either, really," said Wilbur. "It's kind of cool to be dating a superhero. But please leave the rest to me. I can handle it."

Dash pulled out a thick manual from the glove compartment. "Have you read the manual for this time-machine thing?"

Wilbur said, "No. Are you kidding?"

"I don't like reading in school much, but I can speed-read when I have to," Dash said. He flipped through the book, reading over 1000 pages in a few seconds as they flew in the time machine.

"Where are we going?" Violet asked.

"Dad used to tell me that he headed to the roof of the orphanage whenever he felt discouraged. That's where we'll find him now," said Wilbur.

He flew the time machine a little way below the roof, where he could jump from the hood of the vehicle and catch the edge of the roof.

"You wait here while I talk to him," Wilbur said.

Wilbur sneaked up and hid to watch Lewis. He saw Lewis crumple up the picture of the brain scanner and throw it in his direction. Lewis acrobatically rolled out of his hiding place, threw it back to Lewis, and rolled back into hiding.

"Hey, what are you doing up here?" Lewis asked.

Wilbur just cooed like an pigeon. Lewis moved quietly up to the hiding place and dropped the paper again. Wilbur rushed out, pressed the paper into his hand, and ducked back out of sight, cooing some more.

"Will you quit that, please? I know you're not a pigeon," said Lewis angrily.

"Ssh! You're blowing my cover," said Wilbur.

"We're the only ones up here," said Lewis.

"That's just what they want you to think," said Wilbur. He started trying to persuade Lewis to go back to the science fair and fix his brain scanner, but Lewis was having none of it. He wasn't convinced by the tanning salon coupon Wilbur tried to flash as a time cop badge, either. It just made him think Wilbur was insane, the more he spouted off about the Bowler Hat Guy.

"You're crazy!" said Lewis.

"Ho ho! I am not crazy," said Wilbur.

"Oh yeah, Captain Time Travel? Prove it," said Lewis.

"Ah... um..."

"That's what I thought," said Lewis. He headed for the stairs to his room, to lock himself in and keep away from this crazy guy.

Wilbur rushed ahead and barred his way. "If I prove to you I'm from the future, will you go back to the science fair?"

"Yeah, sure. Whatever you say," said Lewis with complete disbelief.

He started for the stairs again, but Wilbur grabbed him and ran with him toward the edge of the roof.

"What are you doing? Let go of me!" Lewis shouted, but he couldn't stop the madman who was apparently going to throw him off the roof to his death.

Violet became visible in Wilbur's path, in her mask and red costume. Dash blurred up beside Wilbur and pulled on him to stop his run.

"Stop that, you're scaring him," said Violet.

Lewis screamed. "This is a nightmare, or I've gone nuts!"

"Calm down," said Violet. We're superheros from the future and we're here to help."

"Then arrest this crazy guy. He was going to kill me!"

"He's all right, he's with us," said Dash.

Lewis looked like he was going to scream again.

"He's..." Violet thought for an instant, and pointed to the logo on Wilbur's chest. "He's the young version of Captain Time Travel, still a bit immature."

"Young version?" asked Lewis.

"It's complicated. Time travel, you know," said Wilbur, going along with the story (which none of the time travelers knew was actually the truth).

"So... it's all true? A guy stole a time machine and wrecked my invention?" asked Lewis.

"Yes," Violet said. "We tried to help, but things went wrong. We need you to go back there and fix the machine. The future depends on it."

"All right, you've convinced me," Lewis said.

"We have?" Wilbur said. "Oh... good. We'll fly you back to the science fair in my time machine."

They revealed the cloaked machine to Lewis, who was suitably impressed.

"You weren't going to throw me off the roof, were you, Captain Time Travel? You were just going to show me your time machine," said Lewis.

"Something like that," said Wilbur.

* * *

Back at the science fair they discovered a new problem. The scanner was gone! Nobody had seen anything because the thief struck while the gym was evacuated.

"What are we going to do? This will change the future!" said Wilbur.

Dash said, "Not if we take him to the future with us now. I read the manual. It will make a time dam that will hold back changes while we regroup."

"Maybe we can use your father's technology to scan for the Bowler Hat Guy, even if he's left this time period," said Violet.

"How about it, Lewis?" said Wilbur in a Captain Time Travel voice. "Want to see the future?"

"All right, if you'll take me to see my mother when this is over. I mean, see her on the day she left me at the orphanage."

"Sure, we can do that," Wilbur falsely promised.

"Then let's go!" said Dash. "Time's a wasting!"

They got back into the machine and set the controls for the future.


End file.
